Fight Fake News

Fake news has become a German word. Our Zeitungsente (newspaper hoax) is just false news, sometimes with a funny touch, while fake news has the connotation of being made up deliberately. Fake news in German would be called quite clumsily a vorsätzliche Falschmeldung. The shorter word Lügenpresse (lying press) is burdened with a Nazi past, so the American term fake news came in handy and has been adopted.

Local newspapers in Germany's southwest have started a campaign with the strange slogan "Jedes Wort wert," translated as "My newspaper is worth every word." 

Strange indeed, for German readers generally have confidence in black-on-white print media along the lines of the statement of Faust's famulus in Goethe's theater play:

Denn was man schwarz auf weiß besitzt, kann man getrost nach Hause tragen.

What we possess in black on white, We can take it home in confidence.

Fake news pollutes the political climate, and so many a man accuses the media as the source of all evil. Long-gone civilizations killed the messenger bearing bad news. Would a silencing of the sources be a remedy against fake news? Was there not a statement regarding the revoking of TV licenses?

Visiting the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) as a student, Red Baron experienced the making up of "facts" by communist trade union officials during a political discussion. Suddenly I found myself in a situation producing fake news, too. There is no excuse, but as a young man, helpless as a kitten on the roof, I tried to beat my adversaries with their own weapons.

It is honorable that my local newspaper claims it is worth every word. Although I spend some time reading the Badische Zeitung after breakfast, the significance of its printed information* is quite variable. Browsing the NYT and Der Spiegel online makes printed national and international news in the BZ generally outdated. So I start with the arts and culture section, followed by local news, although reports on traffic accidents do not interest me since they are interchangeable.
*My subscription includes the electronic version too. So when away from home, I am informed about what is happening at home.

While up to now, fake news in the German press has rarely been an issue, our media are instead accused of manipulating the news. Well, this is no news; haven't the media always done this? In particular, their biased reporting is said to have strengthened the new right-wing AfD* in the run-up to our recent general election. 

By spreading the story that members of the party were mistreated, the media pushed them into the role of victims. Through their provocative right-wing statements and actions, members of the AfD deliberately place themselves into the position of martyrs seeking the pity bonus. Dealing with the AfD is a no-win situation, for ignoring them will make them pitiable, and attacking them politically will lead to endless debates and situations similar to what I experienced in the GDR.

*Alternative for Germany

The first showdown with the AfD at our newly elected Bundestag ended in a stalemate. Each parliamentary group, i.e., the party represented in the federal parliament, has the right to propose a house speaker who will be deputy to the speaker presented by the party with the most seats. The "main" speaker, second in line to our federal president, is generally endorsed by most of the other members of parliament.

At the opening session of the new Bundestag, most deputies of the other parties refused the accreditation of the AfD's candidate for deputy speaker on three consecutive ballots, pushing the guy into the role of martyr. His stigma? He had violated Article 4 of our constitution (Grundgesetz) about religious freedom by denying people the right to practice their Muslim faith in Germany. Sadly, this is not fake news.

Frederick the Great living in the 18th century was more tolerant, writing in his rudimentary German: Alle Religionen sind gleich und guth, wan nuhr die leüte, so sie professieren, ehrliche leüte seindt, und wenn Türken und Heiden kähmen und Wolten das Landt pöplieren, so wollen Wir sie Mosqeen und Kirchen baun, Fr. (All religions are equal and good as long as the people adhering to them are honest people. And if Turks and heathens came to populate the land, we will build them mosques and churches, Frederick).

*

Socialism for Pedestrians

and communism ad nauseam. Here is the blog announced earlier, containing what I learned on the bus ride to Zürich about socialism and communism.

Karl Marx did not invent socialism, a word that most Americans abhor. Socialist ideas were articulated much earlier by the 1848/49 revolutionaries, among others. Here is the translation of the decisive paragraph of an article published in Der Festungs-Bote No 10. It was the last newspaper printed in besieged Fort Rastatt towards the end of the Baden Revolution, crushed by Prussian troops on July 18, 1849:

What is a social democracy, and what is its aim?

Democracy alone will give us neither jobs nor bread. It will not pay the interest on our debts. It will not liberate us from sorrows and sufferings, for when trying to bring the people to power, it consistently stumbles against the disproportion of property of possession. Socialism tries to solve this disproportion by creating equality ... According to the socialists, the distribution of goods shall depend on work. Thereby the best possible equality among people shall be achieved. Each hardworking, decent, industrious man shall have the opportunity to acquire sufficient property to assure him a reasonable enjoyment of life...

This is the gist of modern socialism, whereas Karl Marx, in his main work Das Kapital instead tried to give a scientific basis to communism. While in socialism, people should have the opportunity to acquire sufficient property to ensure a reasonable enjoyment of life, in communism, private property is limited to a few personal belongings.

Marx among his books (©Andreas Höfert)

According to Marx's theory, man* is a working social being. A man should find his personal fulfillment in his work, but he becomes alienated because the product of his labor does not belong to him. So he regards work as a burden. Although man is the brother of his fellow men, he becomes estranged from them primarily because of his private property.
* For political correctness, replace man with woman, he by she, himself by herself, etc.

In communism, private property does not exist, and all people are supposed to be equal. So man will eventually recognize himself as a human being. While in capitalism, a minority dominates a majority, in communism, a dictatorship of the proletariat will rule, a situation that Lenin called full democracy*. Communism will give peace, work, freedom, equality, and happiness to the world.
*In countries of the communist block after 1945, the term Volksdemokratie (people's democracy) was coined.

During the revolutionary uprisings in Europe in March 1848, Marx lived in Vienna as a correspondent for the Cologne-based radical newspaper Rheinische Zeitung (Rhineland News). The working class residing in the suburbs of the Austrian capital was the driving force of the uprising, in contrast to the revolution led by the bourgeoisie in other German regions and cities. Marx, who with his sponsor Friedrich Engels had published the Communist Manifesto in February 1848, was excited, imagining that the predicted proletarian revolution had come. However, it turned out that in Vienna, the national guard and militia were fighting side by side against the enraged workers, protecting the private property of the bourgeoisie.

Marx was disappointed. Living in exile in London near the end of his life, he had high hopes that Britain's industrial workers would try the proletarian uprising. Marx, however, had not reckoned with reforming governments and clever factory owners. They appeased social tensions, agreeing with trade unions on increases in wages and reductions in working hours being only peanuts, in Marx's opinion. A good example is Bismarck's social legislation in the 1880s.

In exile in Zürich, Lenin was well aware of this and concluded that the proletariat would not start a revolution. Is the working class sluggish, lulled by their trade unions, or are workers even dumb?

When Lenin arrived in Petrograd in April 1917, he used his Bolshevik party to point the way for the working class, i.e., forced them to their happiness. Note that the Russian population at that time counted only 5% industrial workers but 80% peasants, so the proletariat was the serfs, not the workers. Without hesitation, Lenin used the oppressed peasantry as auxiliaries of the revolution, pushing his April Theses:

All power to the Soviets,
Immediate peace with Austria and Germany
All land belongs to the peasants
The workers control all factories
Banks are nationalized
Creation of a Soviet Republic
Foundation of a revolutionary Internationale
Agitation and enlightenment of the masses and winning of a Bolshevik majority

The slogan was peace, freedom, land, and bread from now on.

Lenin usurped the bourgeois revolution of February 1917 and organized the October putsch against the provisional Russian government, which later became glorified as the October Revolution. The resulting war between the Bolshevik Red Army and the opposing White Army lasted until October 1922, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was eventually formed.

During the Russian civil war, no side took any prisoners. In the end, more than eight million people were dead. Lenin did not live out his dream, for he died already in 1924 when Stalin took over.

So far, all attempts at communist rule have suffered from the discrepancy between promises and "really existing socialism." Human nature will always result in a nomenklatura, where some are more equal than others.

*

Atdorf at Rest

Solar and wind energy require storage facilities to bridge periods when non-fossil energy sources are unavailable. The most elegant solution is to use existing water reservoirs already producing electricity and upgrade them with water pumps. The latter will be turned on when there is surplus electrical energy from renewable sources, pumping water uphill back into the reservoir.

Local storage facilities are welcome with the need for electricity in Germany's south, which is produced by off-shore wind parks in Germany's north. To this end, an artificial water reservoir near Atdorf in the south of the Black Forest is in the planning stage. Red Baron has reported about the compromised Atdorf project, which has now been put to rest. One Green deputy in Baden Württemberg's state parliament called the Atdorf exitus "extremely regrettable. The decision is economically comprehensible but unwise in terms of energy policy".

Artist's view of the upper and lower water reservoir near Atdorf (©Der Sonntag)

In fact, the decisive arguments for stopping the project were economic. With the cost of electricity way down in Europe, the 1.6 billion euros for constructing the Atdorf facility are just too high. Its capacity, on the other hand, is too small. A fully filled Atdorf reservoir would produce electricity at full power for a mere nine hours. In the meantime, many small gas-fired power plants ensure Germany's continuous electricity supply. A final argument is that surplus renewable energy is increasingly stored economically in second-generation batteries or by producing hydrogen or methane electrochemically.

R.I.P. Atdorf and the Black Forest stays green.

*

Peeing Like in the Wild West

was the title of an article in Freiburg's Official Journal. As an illustration, the Amtsblatt printed the following photo:

©Amtsblatt/ A.J. Schmidt

I blogged about the prairie project at the Mundenhof animal park before. Here are some more details. Next year Freiburg's partnership with Madison, Wisconsin, celebrates its 30 years of existence. On this behalf, the two sister city committees intend to import some prairie feeling to the Mundenhof.

At present, there are only 270 square meters (0.07 acres) of European prairie land growing on water-permeable gravel soil. European grasses and shrubs generally bloom in summer, while American prairie species are proud of the Indian summer. Short- and high-grass indigenous American plants will be seeded on an adjacent surface of an additional 700 square meters (0.17 acres).

In some sort of funny remark, the article in the Amtsblatt referred to the bison at the Mundenhof as country-specific fertilizers. First, the calf does not seem to appreciate his/her mother peeing before him/her. Secondly, with the small surface of land involved, overfertilization may already be a problem.

*

Marillenknödel

When Red Baron read the above announcements, he was all excited. Marillenknödel are not simply apricot dumplings. I had them once made in Geneva 25 years ago by an Austrian lady as the main course and still remember the taste of this juicy delight (Marcel Proust sends his regards). Already, the name Marillenknödel sounds like the k. and k. Monarchy (Austro-Hungarian Empire) for Marillen harvested in Austria differ from Aprikosen in Germany.

Afraid of being late with my inscription to the event, I immediately chose October 1 as my date but soon felt frustrated being informed that my date had to be advanced due to the lack of participants. When I went to the Augustinermuseum to buy my voucher, I was told that to achieve a quorum of six participants, they had finally moved me back to square one, i.e., October 1.

When the museum closed at 5 p.m., our group of only five started the scheduled guided tour of the exhibition Greiffenegg und Ramberg. Having seen the collection twice, I was the only person not having regrets when, precisely at 5.15 p.m., all the lights went off in the exhibition hall. Following a long wait, the lighting could only be partly re-established. While you can admire the graphic highlights in my earlier blog, our guide used the light of his smartphone to illuminate the most interesting drawings for us.

Later, we walked up to the Greiffenegg-Schlössle and read on a sign that the restaurant was closed. However, when we opened the door, we were well received, being the only guests of the evening.

An improvised Greiffenegg drink instead of Ramberg aperitif.

As an aperitif, the house offered the newly created Ramberg drink with gin, tonic water, and peppermint leaves on the occasion of the exhibition. However, our charming service lady soon returned and announced that the tonic water was off. Instead of Ramberg, the chef had prepared a drink that he baptized Greiffenegg based on Gewürztraminer wine on the rocks plus peppermint leaves. Again, I had no regrets about having tasted the Ramberg drink on another occasion. Both drinks need getting used to.

I wanted to order an Austrian wine for the k. and k. three-course dinner, but in its absence, I finally opted for a white Burgundy from the vineyards on Freiburg's Schlossberg we were looking at while dining.

Salad of chanterelles, walnuts, and pears

The first course was so excellent that we asked ourselves whether there would be further escalation.

Fillet of beef Esterhàzy-style and potato galettes

And there was. Red Baron had the best beef fillet for years and could have used the double quantity of an incredible sauce.

I was overwhelmed and thinking: Why are only so few of my countrymen/women embracing the idea of a combined cultural-gastronomical event? The Greiffenegg-Ramberg exhibition closed today but will be followed by one devoted to Rembrandt's graphics. Will the Augustinermuseum give the concept of a joint event another try?

Enter the Marillenknödel. I was in such a high mood that I forgot to take a photo of the dish. It was a nice dessert, but regrettably, it did not revive my souvenirs. 

Ultimately, the chef and service united at our table, and we were full of praise. What a memorable afternoon and evening!

Applause, applause

*